University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
44-11, 23-7
Duke
28-27, 12-18
No. 3 Carolina Caps Regular Season With 9-7 Win Over Duke
May 20, 2017 | Baseball
CHAPEL HILL --- No. 3 North Carolina finished a memorable regular season by winning its 10th straight series as the Tar Heels hung on to beat Duke 9-7 Saturday afternoon at Boshamer Stadium. The Tar Heels, who enter next week's ACC Championship at 44-11, won 23 conference games for the first time in program history and went a perfect 10 for 10 in securing league series, also a first at UNC.
Brian Miller had four hits and Zack Gahagan homered and scored three runs to lead the Carolina offense on a hot day when both teams combined for 16 runs on 29 hits. Gianluca Dalatri picked up his sixth win of the year with five solid innings of work and Austin Bergner retired the side in the ninth for his first career save.
Brandon Riley's two-run triple off Adam Laskey (4-4) in the first gave UNC its first early lead of a highly competitive series. Miller's RBI single in the second made it 3-0, and it was 4-0 before Duke (28-27, 12-18 ACC) got on the board on a Jack Labosky solo homer in the fourth.
Carolina pushed the lead to 7-1 with RBIs from Adam Pate and Ashton McGee in the fourth and Gahagan's solo blast in the fifth.
But the Blue Devils rallied for three runs off Dalatri (6-3) in the sixth, and Griffin Conine's run-scoring single in the seventh made it 7-5. Josh Hiatt gave UNC two important shutout innings to get the Tar Heel bullpen to the ninth, and the hosts scored a pair of important insurance runs on RBI singles from McGee and Kyle Datres on back-to-back pitches in the eighth.
Duke got three straight hits to open the ninth and pulled within two at 9-7, but Bergner got Max Miller to ground out to short to end it and give the Tar Heels a milestone victory.
Carolina will enter next week's ACC Championship as the No. 2 seed. The Tar Heels will play in Pool B with No. 7 NC State and No. 11 Boston College.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Dalatri, Gianluca (6-3)
L: Adam Laskey (4-4)
S: Bergner, Austin (1)
Batting:
2B: Jimmy Herron 1 ; Zack Kone 1 ; Jack Labosky 1 ; Michael Smiciklas 1
HR: Jack Labosky 1
RBI: Zack Kone 1 ; Griffin Conine 1 ; Jack Labosky 3 ; Kennie Taylor 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Jimmy Herron 2 ; Zack Kone 1 ; Griffin Conine 1 ; Jack Labosky 2 ; Chris Proctor 1
SB: Zack Kone 1
Batting:
3B: Riley, Brandon 1
HR: Gahagan, Zack 1
RBI: Miller, Brian 1 ; McGee, Ashton 2 ; Datres, Kyle 1 ; Riley, Brandon 2 ; Gahagan, Zack 1 ; Pate, Adam 1
SF: McGee, Ashton 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Miller, Brian 1 ; Warmoth, Logan 1 ; McGee, Ashton 1 ; Datres, Kyle 1 ; Gahagan, Zack 3 ; Pate, Adam 1 ; Ladowski, Josh 1
CS: Pate, Adam 1
